What Happened Today – March 21, 2026

Judge Douglas Micko rebuked federal prosecutors Friday for charging a Minnesota woman with conspiring to violate religious freedom at a church protest she never attended, writing, “the government had an intense appetite to initiate” the case.

Fifty-year-old Heather Danae Lewis picked up auction items from a parking lot where church protesters later gathered. Prosecutors traced her cellphone to the location, matched her driver’s license photo to a woman in the video, and charged her with two federal crimes. Federal agents pulled her over and interrogated her for hours. She remained under criminal indictment for 22 days. Judge Micko dismissed the charges Friday with prejudice, ensuring they can never be refiled, and noted the government hasn’t produced a single piece of evidence against any of the 39 defendants.

In North Carolina, former Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson built his entire political career on lecturing voters about Christian family values. He was later exposed as the author of posts on a pornography site where he called himself a “black NAZI” and advocated for reinstating slavery. Voters rejected him by 15 points in a state Trump won the same night. This week, on a pastor’s podcast, he admitted he had lied to the public and would do it again because he was protecting Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott officially designated the country’s premier Muslim civil rights organization a terrorist group, a label the State Department has never applied. He used that Texas-only designation to block every Islamic school from a billion-dollar voucher program designed to fund religious education. The state made more than 2,200 schools eligible for Texas families. Not a single one was Muslim until the families sued and a federal judge forced the door open.

Thirty-eight people are still facing federal charges built on flimsy evidence and civil rights statutes turned inside out. Call the U.S. Attorney’s office in Minnesota and demand Pam Bondi drop every one of them.

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